Rewritten

Chapter 5

Patsy grabs her jacket and book and runs for the door. She had just got dry and now she is back in the rain. It has lightened up but, not quite finished yet. She chases down a cab and gives the driver Daniel's address. The vehicle pulls up just as a bolt of lightning strikes far in the distance. She pays the man, entices him to wait for her so that she may return to the city and runs inside the cafe with hope, noticing his car is still parked in the lot. She throws off her wet coat over the fireplace chair and storms into his study.

Blood stains the wooden floor and a dusty hole adorns the ceiling, raining down white particles. She's too late she thinks. A great pain grows rapidly in her head. Her temples burn and her neck feels weighed down. Something isn't right but she won't let it get to her. She will be fine. She knows she will be fine. She just knows.

Instead of bothering with a police investigation, she leaves a sign in the cafe door, "Closed For the Season", and leaves to challenge herself to the hardest year she will ever have. The most exciting year. The year that changes her life. The year that changes history. The year that makes history. She is the factor that can change the world and to Reva, that is unacceptable. The power must be in the hands of someone who has dealt with power before, not someone who grew up in the 30s without an idea of what life should be like. That person should be herself, she claims, because there is no way the world could survive in the hands of Patsy. But boy was she wrong.

Patsy, an orphan child, with no authority over anyone, no say in what she wore or ate growing up, may now be the lady to rescue the world but to do that, she must be born. To do that she must not die. To do that she must not lose her book of the past, present and future. Because no, she isn't a leader, she never will be, but she has power, power unlike the world has seen, past, present and future.

And Daniel, the dish drier with a soft heart, he has a long way to go to find his power and he has more than he realizes, more than Patsy realizes. He just doesn't see it, he can't remember it, he mustn't know it. At least not yet.

Patsy, now on her way to Jasmine's, thinks about him, thinks of his kindness and his genuine care. She taps her fingers on the side door, trying to ignore the constant ache in her head. She clutches onto the book inside her coat and imagines the fragile pages flipping and her name in bold, her birth certificate, then flipping backwards to the start and reading out the list of names in the book's author's graduating class. Reva being right after Patsy and Patsy being right after Jasmine.

She has the book, the journal, memorized by heart. She uses it as her guide, her way home and a reminder of her mission. Reva's words play over in her mind. "You are unfit for what is unknown to you." She sent those words to Patsy when she was young, just barely having any knowledge to read and comprehend. As she grew up, those words stuck in her head.

"Your stop miss." The driver calls.

"Thank you, have a good night." She pays and tips the man.

"I will and thank you, you're so generous." He comments.

Patsy tucks her money bag back into her coat and slides her hand along the fence as she walks the short distance from the cab to the house. Her best friend from as long as she could remember, waits inside. The cab pulls away as she reaches the glistening white gate, rain drops, just barely, sprinkling the property.

She knocks her coded knock for Jasmine, one knock, two quick knocks, one then three. Jasmine swings open the door and goes in for a bear hug. She stops when she notices the uncomfortable look on Patsy's face.

"Everything going smoothly, no new complications?" Jasmine asks and lets Patsy inside. On the way to the couch, Patsy explains, Jasmine becomes so uncomfortable that by the time she gets to the couch she can't sit still. Jasmine calms down after a hot cup of tea and reassuring words but with one sip left in her cup, the phone starts ringing.